Recommend a cookbook to me!

[GuavaGirl]

I'd like to get a few new cookbooks, and I'd love some recommendations.

About me:

I'm pregnant
Eat Meat
Love Vegetables
Not a picky eater
Love ethnic foods and simple natural meals
Like to cook, but I like easy things too
Trying to limit grains but do eat a few whole grains and ezekiel type breads & pasta
Not really into dairy but I like a little bit here and there


A few I've been thinking about getting are:

---The Garden Of Eating: A Produce-dominat​ed Diet & Cookbook
---The Vegetarian Mother's Cookbook: Whole Foods To Nourish Pregnant And Breastfeeding Women - And Their Families by Cathe Olson
---Real Food for Mother & Baby - By nina planck
---What to Expect: Eating Well When You're Expecting by Heidi Eisenberg Murkoff
---Eating for Pregnancy by by Rose Ann Hudson, Catherine Cheremeteff Jones


Since I can't afford them all, I'm having trouble deciding what to get, what to leave out, and curious about ones I've overlooked or never heard of.

Can't wait to get your suggestions!

[staceychev]

I like Real Food for Mother and Baby, but it's not really a cookbook. Can't comment on the other ones since I'm not familiar with them!

My favorite cookbooks are:

Lorna Sass' Complete Vegetarian Kitchen (FYI: vegan)
The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters (omnivorous)

[Kelilah]

I have a huge cookbook collection, but these are the three I can't live without:

Cookin' Southern Vegetarian Style - This one has lots of terrific Southern recipes that have been adapted for the healthy vegetarian lifestyle. A lot of ingredients call for margarine but I'm all natural so I just use butter. (I've also added meat to a few of the recipes sometimes!) Besides the recipes, there are several little essays and blurbs about life and food in the South; this is the kind of cookbook you can just curl up and read. My husband's #1 all-time favorite breakfast is my biscuits with the vegetarian "chicken" gravy in this cookbook. It's better than real chicken gravy.

101 Things To Do With Tofu - I always liked tofu but never knew how to cook it until I got this little book. There's a section at the beginning that explains all the mystery out of it, and the recipes are super-easy, delicious food that meat eaters always seem to enjoy too. My hardcore carnivore brothers and grandfather devoured the shepherd's pie like it was a $100 steak. There are also a lot of nutritious, kid-friendly recipes in here like a high-protein mac & cheese that's so delicious and creamy no one would ever guess it had tofu in it.

Jamie At Home: Cook Your Way To the Good Life - This one is classic Jamie Oliver, decadent and full of full-color food-porn photography. The recipes rely on quality all-natural ingredients (including meats) and are arranged by season to take advantage of seasonal produce. There are also a lot of gardening tips for people who raise their own food. A lot of the recipes seem really elaborate and sensual until you read the ingredients and instructions and see that they're actually not difficult; you just arrange a few high-quality ingredients in a simple way and it becomes way more than the sum of its parts. This is another one you can just sit around and leaf through on a rainy day.

[Biscuits & Gravy]

The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook

We love this book. We keep trying recipes from it, and have not found a dud yet.

ETA: We are dairy free due to my both of my sons being allergic. I have found plenty of recipes in this book that I can either adapt, or that do not have dairy in the first place.

[Honey693]

I love Pioneer Woman Cooks, but the recipes aren't super healthy and you can get most of them off her website. But the mac and cheese recipe in there is amazing.

[sunnysandiegan]

DH asked for The Joy of Cooking one year as a gift and he refers to that book A LOT! He cooks more than I do. What we both like about this particular book is that it gives background info on cooking, so you learn more than just a recipe. You learn the hows and whys, so you can replicate something a few different ways.

DD (age 8) loves to cook and she is always picking out cookbooks from the library to bring home and read. I just brought home How to Cook Everything yesterday. Maybe you could try out some of the cookbooks on your list before choosing which one to buy?

[tanyalynn]

I like The Garden of Eating, tasty recipes that are pretty straightforward and get me out of my rut.

Biscuits&Gravy--if you need/want something new, Garden of Eating is dairy free (and grain-free).

[crunchy_mama]

---The Garden Of Eating: A Produce-dominat​ed Diet & Cookbook

I would recommend this one it has a TON of info as well as a TON of recipes. It has plenty of meat recipes, but tons of vegetable recipes. It is a "paleo" type of cookbook so it is free of grains and dairy naturally. The Vegetarian's mother cookbook is certainly not no/low grain friendly. I would not trust the what to expect book to have any decent recipes considering the very, very crappy pregnancy info they have.

[Biscuits & Gravy]

Originally Posted by TanyaLopez

I like The Garden of Eating, tasty recipes that are pretty straightforward and get me out of my rut.

Biscuits&Gravy--if you need/want something new, Garden of Eating is dairy free (and grain-free).

I always need/want something new when it comes to cookbooks. I'll look into that one. Thanks!

[Sativarain1]

Full Moon Feast is my personal favorite

[MidnightCommando]

The New Best Recipe is pretty comprehensive and I use it all the time!

linky

One of the reasons I love it so much is because it explains WHY they chose the ingredients and the roles they play in the recipes. If you've ever watched Good Eats, it's sort of along the same lines. The book is put out by the people of Cook's Illustrated and they test these recipes with so many variable to find the perfect outcome.

There is a roasted lamb dish with a balsamic-caper reduction that is to die for. It is now our Christmas staple.

[blueridgewoman]

Another vote for Garden of Eating- I definitely enjoyed that cookbook!

[rebirth]

I just got a cookbook called beauty and body foods- it is fantastic. I'm making carrot cilantro soup and some granola bars from it today.

[deditus]

From Asparagus to Zucchini:
A Guide to Cooking Farm-Fresh, Seasonal Produce

http://www.macsac.org/atoz.html

[treemom2]

I'm a cookbook addict (really, I think I have over 100 in my house, boxes more in storage in the states)but the one I most often go back to is the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook--I can't recommend it enough and it has a bit of everything in it. I have about 5 of these from different years (they all have a few different recipes in them). I will say I bought Joy of Cooking and hated having to flip around the book to find parts of the recipe.